Language

Writing guides

And now a word from the competition

WE'RE very proud of our in-house style book, but now there's a new challenger: last week Yahoo! launched its own style guide, which as well as the usual lessons on when to capitalise and the proper use hyphens includes sections on how to attract the attention of search engines and take account of eye-tracking studies.

Good writing and web-friendly writing don't necessarily coincide. At The Economist we were in the habit of writing headlines that were witty and effective in a paper publication, but useless for the web, eg,

South AfricaSpace invaders

You would have to read as far as what we call the "rubric", the summary below the headline, to discover that this piece, published in 2001, was about land-grabs by squatters. But search engines don't read that far. And nor, according to the Yahoo! style book, do most people these days:

Most online readers scan first. According to computer usability expert Jakob Nielsen, “People rarely read Web pages word by word; instead, they scan the page, picking out individual words and sentences.” Eye-tracking studies, which examine where people's eyes roam on a webpage, reveal these basic truths about site visitors:

• They scan to see whether the content is relevant.• They are more likely to scan the top of the page than the bottom.• They look at headings, boldfaced terms, and images.

But good web writing and just plain good writing can overlap, too. Yahoo also offers this advice.

Scanning requires less brainpower than reading. Concise sentences that convey their point quickly are more likely to grab visitors than long, complex sentences and are more likely to entice people to explore further.

So perhaps even The Economist, with is penchant for the rarefied and arcane, and Yahoo! can agree here. If our style-book editor had any say in the matter, we would all write in the simplest way possible, as he outlined in 2004 in an article composed entirely of one-syllable words:

...short words are best. Plain they may be, but that is their strength. They are clear, sharp and to the point. You can get your tongue round them. You can spell them. Eye, brain and mouth work as one to greet them as friends, not foes. For that is what they are. They do all that you want of them, and they do it well. On a good day, when all is right with the world, they are one more cause for cheer. On a bad day, when the head aches, you can get to grips with them, grasp their drift and take hold of what they mean. And thus they make you want to read on, not turn the page.

As much as I am for concise writing, I found the example paragraph, composed from only one syllable words, very hard to read and follow. I guess it is because it packs a lot into a very small space - a much higher density of content than usual. It does not seem to let the eye, and the mind rest. I guess we still need a few long words, not only so we can feel smug for being able to understand them without the aid of a dictionary, but also to be able to gloss over at least a bit of the otherwise wise and important writing. ;)